Chapter 3 one

You live not too far from the Mopra Rock, and you probably have often walked along the ruins; I need not describe them to you.All I can tell you is that this place has never been so pleasing to the eye.The day I sent the roof off, the sun first hit the damp wainscoting where I had spent my childhood.The scorpion that took my place lived there more comfortably than I had ever done before.They at least look out into the daylight, letting the midday sun warm their cold limbs. The Maupra family is divided into long and young branches.I belong to the long branch.My grandfather was that old Tristan de Maupra, who squandered his fortune, disgraced his name, and was so odious that after his death he became a strangely wicked figure in people's talk.The folks still say that they saw his ghost either in a wizard who showed the bad boy the way to the village of Varennes, or in an old white hare who manifested himself to evil people.When I was born, there was only M. Hubert de Mauprat left in the young branch, who was called "Knight" because he belonged to the Order of Malta, and he was very kind while his cousins ​​were wicked.He is the youngest son in the family, and he has been celibate; he is the only one left among several brothers and sisters. He finally changed his original intention and married a wife and started a family a year before I was born.Before changing his life in this way, it is said that he tried his best to find an heir in the long house who could revitalize the family and keep the prosperous family business in the hands of the young house.He managed the affairs of his cousin Tristan in every possible way, and repeatedly appeased his creditors.But seeing that his good intentions had only contributed to the vices and scandals of the family, and instead of being respected and appreciated, he had attracted secret hatred and crude envy, so he abandoned all attempts to live in harmony, and fell out with his cousins. Regardless of his advanced age (in his sixties), he resolutely got married and wanted to get an heir.He had a daughter, and his hopes of carrying on the family had to be ended; for his wife died of a sudden illness, which the doctor said was fatal colic.He left the country, returning now and then to live on his estate, six leagues from the Rock of Maupra, on the edge of Varennes and Fromental.He was wise, just, and very enlightened, and his father, not rejecting the spirit of that century, asked someone to educate him.He still retained his firmness of character and daring spirit; like his predecessors, he prided himself on his knightly epithet of "Bludge," which had been passed down through the ancestral line of the Mauprat family.As for the Changfang, it has gone bad. Rather, the Changfang retained the habit of feudal looting, and got the nickname of "Bandit" Mopra.My father was the eldest son of Tristan, the only married brother.I am his only son.It is necessary to say one thing here, which I learned very late.When Hubert Mauprat learned of my birth, he asked my parents to adopt me, and promised to make me his heir if he was given full power to arrange my education.At that time, my father was killed in a hunting accident, and my grandfather refused the offer of the knight, declaring that only his children were the rightful heirs of the nursery, and he would therefore oppose with all his strength the transfer of rights to me.At this time, Hubert had a daughter.Seven years later, when his wife died, leaving him this only child, the desire of the nobility at that time to carry on the family prompted him to renew his claim to my mother.I don't know how my mother answered; she fell ill and died forever.The country doctor still said he had terrible colic.She spent the last two days in this world with my grandfather at her house... 1 French coulee is about four kilometers today.

Please pour me a glass of Spanish wine, I feel a chill hit my heart.It doesn't matter, that's what I feel when I start talking about memories.This will pass. He drank a large glass of wine, and we drank a glass too; for we also felt cold when we saw his stern face and heard his short and short words.He continued: I was orphaned at the age of seven.My grandfather took all the clothes and all the money he could take from my mother's house; When he was buried, he grabbed me by the collar of his coat, threw me on the back of his horse, and said to me: "Hey! My guardian child, come to us, and try not to cry so much; for I am not very patient with little children."

Sure enough, after a while, he whipped me severely, and I stopped crying, like a turtle shrunk in its shell, and I didn't even dare to breathe during the journey. It was a tall old man, bony and strabismus.I can still see him vividly.That evening left an indelible impression on my mind.My mother's earlier tales of the deeds of her despicable father-in-law and his bandit sons had suddenly become reality.I remember, from time to time, the moon shed its light through the dense branches and leaves of the forest.My grandfather's mount was lean, powerful, and tough like his.As soon as the whip is whipped, it will slap its hooves, and its master will always whip it.It flies like lightning across the hollows and the streams that cut Varenna across.With each sway I lost my balance, and in a panic I clutched at the galloping horse's scabbard or my grandfather's clothes.As for him, he didn't think much of me, and if I fell I doubt he'd bother to get me back on the horse.When he felt my fear, he taunted me, and to make me more frightened he made the horse bounce.How many times have I been discouraged and almost fell off my back, the instinct of loving life kept me from giving in to the moment of despair.At last, near midnight, we stopped suddenly before a small pointed gate, and the drawbridge rose behind us.I was drenched in a cold sweat when my grandfather grabbed me and threw me to an ugly tall crippled lad who carried me into the house.This is my Uncle John, and I have come to Mopra Rock.

My grandfather lived with his eight sons, the last remnants of the kind of feudal petty tyrants preserved in our province.Throughout the centuries, in France, this kind of people abounded and harassed.Civilization strides toward the upheavals of revolution, and more and more of these extortions and gangs of marauding are wiped out.The light of education, the refined taste as a remote reflection of an elegant court, and perhaps a premonition of the terrible awakening of the populace, permeated the old castles down to the semi-rural manors of the lesser nobles.Even in the most backward provinces of the center, the idea of ​​social equality has triumphed over barbarous custom.More than one scoundrel, even with privileges, had to reform, and in some places the peasants had run out of patience and got rid of their lords, while the courts did not want to intervene, and the lord's relatives did not dare to seek revenge.

Even though the state of mind has changed over time, my grandfather still maintained his position in the local area for a long time without encountering resistance.With a large family to support, who had as many vices as himself, he was at last pestered and harassed by his creditors, who, no longer frightened by his threats, threatened to plot against him.Consideration must be given to avoiding the assistants of the bailiffs, and at the same time avoiding the quarrels that may arise at any time. Although the Maupra family is large in number, tacit cooperation and physical strength, their reputation has faded. rise up and throw stones at their house.So Tristan united his family, like a boar gathers its young after a hunt, and huddled in his little castle, where there were ten or twelve peasants, and these servants of his, Either poachers or deserters, all as reclusive as he was (that's how he called it), safe behind solid walls.A large bunch of shotguns stood on the platform.Hunting weapons, carbines, muskets, stakes, and broadswords, and the gatekeepers were ordered not to allow more than two persons within range of fire.

From that day on Mauprat and his children renounced the civil law as they renounced the moral code.They form adventurous gangs.They supply game to their poaching friends and raise illegal taxes on the surrounding Bernon.It is well known that our peasants, though not cowardly (far from it), are mild-tempered, timid through indolence and distrust of the law; they never understood it, and even today they do not.No province of France has preserved more ancient traditions, and endured longer the abuses of feudal privileges.Nowhere, perhaps, do people like us still hold the titles of village lords in certain mansions, nor so easily alarm the populace with news of some invented and grotesque political event. At a loss.At the time when my story happened, the Maupra family was the only powerful family in the rural areas far away from the city and cut off from the outside world. Those who do so will be punished.The peasants lingered, listened anxiously to some of their own preaching independence, mused, and made up their minds to resign themselves to it.The Maupras don't ask for money.Currency value is the most difficult thing for farmers in these villages to understand and discard with contempt. "Money is precious," is a farmer's proverb, because to the farmer, money represents something other than physical labor.It is a transaction with things and outsiders, an effort of foresight or prudence, a market, an intellectual struggle to free the peasant from habits of neglect, in short, intellectual labor; Most disturbing stuff.

The Maupras knew this well, and they didn't need money, because they had long since stopped paying their debts and only asked the farmers for food.One farmer pays a capon surtax, another a calf surcharge, a third furnishes wheat, a fourth furs, and so on.This family is very scheming, and they see it to be blackmailing, and they only want every farmer to pay without too much trouble; they promise to provide help and protection to the farmers, and to a certain extent keep their promises.The Mauprats exterminated wolves and foxes, entertained and hid deserters, helped others to deceive the state, and terrorized tax collectors and officials of the Salt Bureau.

They have gone to great lengths to corrupt the poor by defrauding them of their true interests, and corrupting the common man by altering his principles of dignity and birthright.They separated whole villages from the law, and frightened the officials who enforced it, saying that within a few years the law would become truly obsolete; The Na area is retreating, being put on a collar, and returning to the tyranny of the local tyrants in the past.The Mauprats easily corrupted the poor: they pretended to be popular, in contrast to the other nobles of the province;My grandfather wasted no time in making the peasants hate his cousin Hubert de Mauprat.When Hubert received his creditors, he himself sat in an arm-chair, and the creditors stood with their hats off; but Tristan made them sit at the table, and tasted with them the wine which they so respectfully offered him, and did not order until midnight. The servants sent them off, all drunk, carrying torches, and the forest echoed with obscene tunes.Debauchery eventually degrades the peasants' morals.The Mauprats were not long in collusion with other families, tolerated because it was profitable, and besides, need I say it?well!The satisfaction of vanity!Residential dispersion facilitates the spread of evils.There was no scandal to speak of, no accusations to be made.The smallest village suffices to make public opinion run wild and unhindered; but the huts are scattered, the farms are isolated, the heath and the undergrowth keep the houses at a distance and out of control.Shame works better than conscience.Needless to say to you, many vile ties have been formed between master and slave: squandering, extortion.Bankruptcy was the model and creed of my youth; the Maupras indulged; mocked all equality, paid neither interest nor principal to creditors; beat up judicial officers for their audacity to issue restraints; and ambushed mounted policemen The team, as long as it's near the little tower; expect the plague of the Supreme Court, the famine of men with new philosophies, and the demise of Maupra's hut.They especially assumed the air of twelfth-century dignitaries.My grandfather spoke fondly of his lineage and the prowess of his ancestors; he missed the good old days when castle masters had instruments of torture, dungeons, and especially cannon.As for us, we only have forks.My uncle John was very accurate at aiming the light long guns with sticks and frowned feet. This kind of long guns is enough to make the weak local military forces respect us.